Today's Hours: |
|
Allen Memorial Library is arranged using the Dewey Decimal System of Organization.
“The Dewey Decimal System coordinates materials on the same subject and on related subjects to make items easier to find on the library shelves. This system organizes information into 10 broad categories. Each major category is divided into 9 sub-categories. Each sub-category is further divided into 9 specialized topics that can be broken down even further by adding decimals. Each division becomes more specific.
“These divisions help decide where a book ‘belongs’ in the Dewey system, and helps us to find a book on a shelf. For example, books about Japan are given the ‘call number’ 952. To see what books your library currently has on Japan, go to the non-fiction shelves and find the books that have 952 as part of their call number.”
000 Computers, information, & general reference
100 Philosophy & psychology
200 Religion
300 Social sciences
400 Language
500 Science
600 Technology
700 Arts & recreation
800 Literature
900 History & geography
For more information:
http://www.oclc.org/dewey/resources/summaries/
The Allen Memorial Library uses the Dewey Decimal System to organize our non-fiction shelves. Non-fiction items can include books, movies, CDs, audiobooks, etc.
Any given item can have a long Dewey Decimal number (also called the "call number"), such as 595.789/BROC. The reason these numbers get so long is because each digit helps narrow down to the specific subject that the book is about.
The Dewey System first organizes all books into 10 main subject classes. These are:
Dewey Number Class Subject
000 Generalities
100 Philosophy and Psychology
200 Religion
300 Social Science
400 Language
500 Natural Science and Mathematics
600 Technology (Applied Sciences)
700 Arts
800 Literature
900 Geography and History
Within each class, Dewey call numbers continue to get more and more specific. The example given above, (595.789/BROC), is a book about butterflies. To get to the subclass for butterflies, the Dewey number grows like this:
500 Natural Science
590 Zoological Sciences
595 Other Invertebrates
595.7 Insects
595.78 Lepidoptera
595.789 Butterflies
Finally, since more than one book about butterflies could have the number 595.789, we also add to the end the first four letters of the author's last name (or, if no author is given, then the first four letters of the title). In our example, the author is James P. Brock, so BROC is added to the end of the Dewey call number to get 595.789/BROC.
Shelving Items in "Dewey Order"
In the Dewey Decimal System, books are filed digit by digit, not by whole number. This means, for example, that our book at 595.789/BROC would come after 595.0123 and before 595.9.
With Dewey decimal numbers, it doesn't matter how long the number is. Items get shelved in order of the numbers, as if they all had the same number of digits.
Here is another example - the Dewey call numbers below are in proper Dewey order:
331
331.01
331.016
331.02
331.041
331.0413
331.042
331.1
331.198
331.2
And again, after the decimal numbers come the letters from the author's name (or title). When two books have the same number, then they go in alphabetical order by the letters.
Here is an example of Dewey order with decimal numbers and letters:
641/Bett
641.5/Corn
641.5/Wolk
641.555/Ray
641.594/Muns
641.5945/Food
641.596/Mont
641.596/West
641.65/Dese
641.812/Savo
There are special collections within the library that are sorted differently from the Dewey Decimal System. Here are some examples:
In addition, the library also has purchased the software Dewey Easy v3.0. This is installed on Student Laptop #2. New students can be trained in Dewey shelving by taking this program. When they finish with all modules of the program, there will be a certificate indicating the score that they received. This should be printed out afterwards; keep in mind that the final area score does not print out, so the student should write this in manually.
To reinstall this program, refer to the Coral entry for this software.